Keshub Chandra Sen
Keshub Chunder Sen (Bengali: কেশব চন্দ্র সেন Keshob Chôndro Shen) (also spelt Keshab Chandra Sen) (1838-1884) was a Bengali religious preacher and reformer. Keshub Chunder was an organiser of the Adi Brahmo Samaj for eight years from 1857. He later established a syncretic school of mystic spiritualism, called the Nabo Bidhan or 'New Dispensation', through which he intended to amalgamate particular principles of Christianity and of the western spiritual tradition with Hinduism. This places him and his followers outside Brahmoism with proclamations combined against this from every quarter-
- "Let us all, every Brahmo and Brahmo Samaj, combine to let the world know that the New Dispensation is not the Brahmo religion: That we have not the least sympathy for the creed : That the New Dispensation is totally opposed to Brahmoism"[1]
Early life
Baboo Keshub Chandra Sen was born on November 19, 1838 into an affluent, 'service class' family of renaissance Bengal. His grandfather, Ramkamal Sen (1783-1844) was an employee of the Tagore family as Secretary of Zamindari (Landholders) Association of Bengal founded by Dwarkanath Tagore and had compiled an early English-Bengali Dictionary (in two volumes published in 1830 and 1834) for William Carey. Ramkamal Sen is well known as being a staunch pro-sati Hindu and lifelong opponent of Ram Mohan Roy the Brahmo reformer and for publicly opposing (with Radhakant Deb) Roy's agitation against Sati (the cruel practice of forcing Hindu widows to be burnt on their husbands funeral pyre)[2] . His father Peary Mohan Sen was made the secretary of the Asiatic Society in 1831 after Dwarkanath Tagore joined in 1829 and K.C. Sen himself also briefly held the position in 1854. For a short time thereafter Sen was also a clerk in the Bank of Bengal, but resigned his post to devote himself exclusively to literature and philosophy. The background to this important development in Sen's life is recounted by his biographer and intimate associate Rev. P.C. Mazoomdar as follows-
- "When going through the Senior Scholarship Examination in 1856, now corresponding to the First Arts, a most unnatural accident befell him, which cast a gloom upon the remaining years of his college life. On the day when the Mathematical questions were set, one of the professors, who was appointed to watch the examinees, found him comparing papers with the young man who sat next to him. It is difficult to say with whom the irregularity originated, whether with Keshub or his neighbour, but he was most severely handled for it. He was not permitted to appear at the rest of the examination ; they threatened to rusticate him but on urgent and influential remonstrance took him back again. His sensitiveness, naturally great, was most deeply offended, the whole circumstance depressed him most seriously, and affected his mental development ever afterwards."[3]
In 1857 a depressed Keshub Chandra Sen again took employment in clerkship, this time as private secretary, to Dwijendranath Tagore and got himself subscribed to membership of the Brahmo Samaj while its founder Debendranath Tagore was away in Simla. With the love and affection of the Tagore family he got over the trauma in his past, and after 1859, Keshub Chandra Sen dedicated himself to the organisational work of this faith and in 1862 was assigned, by Hemendranath Tagore, a stipendary ministry (Acharya) of one of its worship houses despite being a non-Brahmin (previously a Shudra untouchable Lala Hazarilal had been made an Acharya to Nadia in 1851 by Debendranath Tagore). In the course of his 8 years in the Calcutta Brahmo Samaj the Tagore family found Sen a useful employee to evict many inconvenient associates from the Tattwabodhini days such as Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar from Samaj. In 1862 Sen also helped found the Albert College and wrote articles for the Indian Mirror, a weekly journal of Calcutta Brahmo Samaj in which social and moral subjects were debated.
In 1863 he wrote The Brahma Samaj Vindicated. He also travelled about the country lecturing and preaching the Adi Dharm. The steady development of his Christian zeal, however, led to his expulsion from Adi Dharm, and Sen's followers took on the name "Brahma Samaj of India", and tried to propagate its doctrines by missionary enterprise. Its tenets at this time were the following:
- The wide universe is the temple of God.
- Wisdom is the pure land of pilgrimage.
- Truth is the everlasting scripture.
- Faith is the root of all religions.
- Love is the true spiritual culture.
- The destruction of selfishness is the true asceticism.
In 1866 Sen delivered an address on Jesus Christ, Europe and Asia, in which he proclaimed that "India would be for Christ alone who already stalks the land" and which fostered the impression that he was about to embrace Christianity. This drew attention to him and in 1870 he journeyed to England where he remained for six months, visiting many towns there. England somewhat disappointed him, as he records, "I came here an Indian, I go back a confirmed Indian; I came here a Theist, I go back a confirmed Theist. I have learned to love my own country more and more." These words spoken at the farewell soiree may furnish the key to the change in him which so greatly puzzled many of his English friends.
He developed a tendency towards mysticism and a greater leaning to the spiritual teaching of the Indian philosophies, as well as a somewhat despotic attitude towards the Samaj. He gave his daughter, Suniti Devi in marriage to Maharaja Nripendra Narayan of Cooch Behar; he revived the performance of mystical plays, and himself took part in one. These changes alienated most of his followers, who deserted his standard and founded the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj in 1878.
Sen did what he could to reinvigorate his own small faction by a new infusion of Christian ideas and phrases, e.g. the New Dispensation, the Holy Spirit. He also instituted a sacramental meal of rice and water in imitation of the Sikh system of Amrit (nectar) initiation for new converts. On his return to India he established the Indian Reform Association.
Two lectures delivered between 1881 and 1883 throw a good deal of light on his latest doctrines. They were The Marvellous Mystery, the Trinity, and Asia's Message to Europe. This latter is an eloquent plea against the Europeanizing of Asia, as well as a protest against Western sectarianism. During the intervals of his last illness he wrote The New Samhita, or the Sacred Laws of the Aryans of the New Dispensation. He died in January 1884, leaving many bitter enemies and some warm friends.
His book, the Slokasangraha, was a collection of texts from Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Chinese scriptures. It was a movement brought to birth by the conflict of East with West in the realm of intellect. Pandit Sivanath Sastri gives an insider's view of History of the Brahmo Samaj. Later Sen became a devotee of Sri Ramakrishna and New Dispensation followers publicized Ramakrishna before the larger public of Bengal through their speeches and writings. In the Kathamrita of the Ramakrishna Mission, Keshab's New Dispensation followers are sarcastically described as Brahmos.